


Comicbook Heroes

by Nemi_Thine, PurpleMoon3



Category: Marvel 616, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Realities, Crossover, Fucked up Family is still Family, Gen, Insanity, Loki is a Good Son, Loki is not a Dog, Lokifeels, Mental Health Issues, Not-Secrets, ODINfeels, Odin's B+ Parenting, Sometimes graphic descriptions of uncomfortable subjects, Thor Is a Good Bro, Thorfeels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2017-12-30 03:59:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemi_Thine/pseuds/Nemi_Thine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/pseuds/PurpleMoon3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of falling into the clutches of Thanos and the Chitauri, Loki finds himself pulled directly from the Void to the feet of Odin AllFather... only, it isn't the Odin who told him 'No'.  The Odin he finds himself with -not that he realizes it, being a bit mind scrambled from the sensory/air deprivation and emotional rollercoaster- is the Odin and Asgard of the Marvel Comicbook Universe, specifically from the beginning run of <i>Journey Into Mystery</i>, and they do things quite a bit different in that universe. </p><p>First: Gods are Gods, not aliens, and there is no pussyfooting around this fact.</p><p>Two: No matter what he's done, Odin doesn't disown/abandon any son of his, especially if they've returned from Beyond The Void.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prolog

**Author's Note:**

> So this was a prompt -[which can be found here](http://norsekink.livejournal.com/11219.html?thread=25475283)\- that kinda spiraled into a sort of round-robin that involved to an actual story. Bonus material can be found on the prompt thread. What is posted here is the 'cleaned up' and more coherent version. The original had time-skips from Hel.

When they recovered him, they weren't even sure it was a him. Cyanotic and slicked in nothingness that clung and froze and killed; it was wet without being wet, like slime and antimatter and clear and black and crystals-

_ice and rainbows and death_

-the Void's own afterbirth.

Odin would have banished him, but instead stared hard at the entity within the non-womb that had peeled out of the Void when the Odinforce had brushed against the monster who had brought an end to Asgard-  

_choke the life from him, feel it draining and weak, and a weak thing drained into being._

-or had not yet brought. Loki bore watching, and he had but one eye.

The Odinforce reached out of its own will for the small, stubborn, not-dying life inside the nothingness like a wolf bitch to her cubs. Gungnir had near rattled in his hand when a distorted, bloody eye opened and the figure groped with overgrown claws; tried to reach out from the hell it was in.

He’d let the boy, his son still, sit beside him and together they peeled back layers of Void and anti-life to reveal the being within, both of them feeling a strange connection.

Bloody eyes saw them though the distortion. It stirred within the chrysalis, clawing with overgrown fingernails, first at the border, then at itself. Some part of Odin's mind drew a connection though, and recognized it. Escape.

It was not a thing that Gods were familiar with in general; suicide.

He came free of his afterbirth, bluer than a newborn, Joutun blue.  Loki, the wasted one, not the child one, cried out pathetically (and he had never heard such a noise from Loki at all), scraped at his hands and closed his eyes, the stubborn life force only then flickered as if it would die from the shock of having real air, real existence, to touch it once more.

It was Loki who moved first, both of them, one to self strike and the other to stop as again it turned its hands upon itself with such force that the claws broke as it squirmed and cried out piteously.

* * *

 

Loki had felt them before he saw them. He'd lost track of how long he'd been drifting-  _Was he dead? He hadn’t thought death was supposed to hurt so much._ -through nothing. Nothing was cold-  _So why couldn’t he warm?_ -and encased his skin like hardened amber. A shell of cold reality in the unreality.

And then, like a file to a magnet, he’d stopped drifting. He was guided, grabbed,  _dragged_ out of the- _no place no home nonothingnowheretobelong_ -Void.

He’d labored to open his eyes, blood red and sore from being sightless so long, and peered up through his cracking chrysalis into a single, familiar eye.  His heart lurched, gasps of air escaped his mouth and not-air poured from his spasming lungs, dripped down his nostrils.

Loki reached, reached out with the flagging thing that was his spirit, and saw-  _Not his!_ -hands. Brittle, too-long nails broke against his skin when he squirmed, when he cried, because he- _It!_ \- was wrong, wrong, wrong.

A pair of small hands-  _Right hands!_ \- caught his wrists. Green eyes-  _familiar yet different_ -and beyond that, so many more had stood looking. Staring. Watching. Judging.

Their mouths didn’t move, but he could still hear them whispering behind his back, words unclear for all that he knew they must be saying.

It made him angry, irrationally so, and Loki screamed. He screamed and screamed and screamed until his shuffling retreat was blocked by a pair of sturdy, armored legs, and Loki's gaze went up and up and up and...

* * *

 

He stilled for a while when the blue was driven away-  _Which of them had worked that magic?_

The other Loki stilled his struggles to stare at Loki's eyes, but then they flicker. Odin knew the exact moment he focused on the other gods surrounding them, because he screamed and screamed, terror and hate and anger. Loki, mad and wild, flailed away from them and they from him.

Odin held his ground when all the rest backed away from the rabid thing. Odin was calm, but his is the calmness of an immovable, impossible mountain. Odin's temperment inspired many things within sane creatures but a like-minded tranquility was not among these. Perhaps that was why the boy had reacted the way he did.

The mad one abutted against his legs and looked up at him, taking him in from armored boots to one eyed visage, then he smiled like a babe.

"Father. You found me. You _came_."

* * *

 

The Void's cold was still in the creature who claimed Odin as Father. The Trickster's hands were slightly frostbitten from touching the other frost giant. He was colder than space, cold as the Void, and his cold bit through the Allfather's boots until the pink from Loki's touch had finished spreading. The boy chanted in an iambic mutter, "I knew you'd come, Iknew you'dcome."

Loki’d clapped the blackened (frostbitten) skin off of his fingertips, revealed the shiny pink beneath, his face carefully blanked but for curiosity. He had his suspicions, but to speak them would put Asgard against the newcomer as surely as they were against him.

But...The Allfather had somewhat grudgingly accepted him, and had permitted him to sit in his vicinity when they slowly excised the other from his cocoon. Odin probably knew, if not surely of reality, then what Loki himself had suspected.

Besides, not only might this distract Asgard from him, but it might also earn the little trickster an ally in the form of a fellow outcast.

"I think," Loki said when he leaned back against his  _much_ bigger brother's leg, "That he's  **a** me."

* * *

 

Thor had been aware of his brother at his feet, of the child's shoulders pressing into his shins, and he had to admit no matter what lily white-  _and ash gray_ -lies may occasionally-  _often_ -spill from the reborn god's lips there was some truth to his statement. Thor wondered if Loki had shattered when he died, bits of himself flung to all corners-  _if the Void had corners_ -of the abyss and if he were to smash the two Loki together would that bring his true brother back?

Not that either Loki was not real, not each a person in their own right, but the idea was… unsettling. He still, at times, missed his brother and the world-shaking fights they would have-  _one hadn’t really lived until Hel was peeking at you over her father's shoulder_ -but Loki small, new, and not tainted by centuries of jealousy and taunting was…

The not-yet-man had sprawled, clutching, at Odin's feet  _was_ Loki.  At his side Thor could felt Mjolnir hum in recognition as it had that day in Paris, but he was also  _not_ Loki. He was slender-  _Other than starvation from being adrift in the Void_ -almost girlishly so, in a way that the Loki of Thor's past had never been. When he looked down at his own little brother Thor could see the echos of the man that would-could be. Hard panes and broad shoulder, hands that would one day wield a sword as well as spells if he cared to.

Thor had then knelt down and picked his Loki up in his arms. His brother gave a token protest. The other only had eyes for Odin.

"Iknewyou'dcome. Iknewyou'dcome." A mantra of comfort.

Thor held his little brother close, rested his chin on the mess of dark, fluffy hair, and didn't have the heart to tell the Loki the truth.  In this, perhaps his brother-that-was had been right on the value of lies.

Thor had gone and searched for his Liesmith-  _Even after death!_ -opinions of others be damned.

Despite still being alive when Lost, neither Loki's brother nor father had truly come for him.


	2. Chapter 2

Loki, a Loki. Desperate. Grateful. In his debt.

That it was any Loki was worthy of amazement.

He could not just cast him back out into the void. Odin well knew the spite and damage a Loki could wreak if he felt betrayed, scorned, or dismissed. This Loki had already survived the Void, and had undoubtedly once held a fragment of the Odinforce, willingly. Righteously. Killing him, even in this state, would be difficult.

No, there was no reason to endanger any realm by maddening the sorcerer, even if he drifted beyond his reach and into another Odin's.

(A waste. Odin was not the man to save with one hand and stab with the other. Not the man to rescue cats only to cast them back into the rapids.)

Odin was a hard man, a practical man, and sometimes cruelty was needed, but he was not cruel as a matter of nature.

"Sleep," he commanded with magic that was not so much a spell as a pressure of will, and when the small armored figure fell unconscious Odin stepped back, shaking hoarfrost from his boots. "Take him someplace warm, when he wakes feed him. Do not allow him to gorge himself, we don't know how long he was there."

"My King--"

He heard the note of protest in that voice, and he raised his own, "Do not question me. I am Odin Allfather, and though I may be rightly enraged by my children, I will abandon no son of mine who returns to me from beyond the void, even if I did not recognize him or raise him myself." His eye caught the littler Loki's, the one he remembered but had not recognized. Why he had not expected that surprised grin he did not know.

But then, no one had really come for the Loki at his feet, did they? Not even Thor.

He was blessed by his sons, he thought, and cursed by the wretch that had been Loki (but was no longer, but could be again). So when he passed Thor, he was gruff, "Take care of him."

 

* * *

 

Odin had them pick up the stray and take him away to be cleaned up and tended to. He was thin in his armor and leathers, nearly swimming in it from starvation, but none of them were prepared when the serving girl and warrior both cried out when picking him up.

"Put him back down, put him back down," they cried out and eased him down. "Someone make soft earth or a cloak, get the armor from him," commanded the warrior. While the maid yelled, "Bring me Broth!"

"Did he frost you, Djalbrng?"

The warrior shook his head. "Nay, my lord, he...he feels like a skeleton."

It was perhaps, an overstatement, but not much of one. They freed him from the cloth he nearly swam in; his elbows bulged broader than his arms, his ribs showed and his stomach was concave. Such was an alien thing to Asgard, to be so diminished and weak. It was a thing of horror.

Every dip on him was filled with more of the un-stuff, and Odin cleaned it away.

(Fortunate were they to have a rift into the roots of Yggdrasil where such things could be safely disposed of.)

 

* * *

 

He hadn't slept in the Void. Or maybe he did. Everything melted and blurred and if there was a difference between moments of sleeping and waking he couldn't discern them.

But he could sleep, now. He could rest. Odin -Odin who did not deny him- said so. Father was awake. The Frost Giants -Not him, he was Odinson, wasn't he? Yes. Yes.- were decimated, maybe permanently, to never threaten Asgard again. He'd done his duty. Asgard was safe, and wasn't that what mattered? How many Aesir soldiers would have died in the new war? How many civilians caught in the crossfire of advancing armies? A wise king never seeks out war.

Asgard was safe.

Asgard was safe, and Odin understood. Odin had come for him. Odin accepted him, even if everyone else -Loki couldn't look at Frigga. Couldn't speak to her. Ever the politicians wife, she'd chosen her words well, but he'd understood what they meant. He wasn't her son. Not her obligation.- did not.

Asgard was safe.

He was ~~safe~~ home.

 

* * *

 

He woke occasionally, after the first time they hid the sky from his eyes, for it had him shrieking like a ghoul. At those times only Odin could calm him fully. The king did not play nursemaid. He need only be present, to perhaps not glare so harshly, or lay a hand on the new Loki's brow.

He quieted then, and leaned to him like a plant to the sun.

The princes and the Allfather all looked upon him, strange expressions on their faces, though the boy quickly scampered away.

When the Allfather remade Asgard they carried him directly to the healing chambers, dressed him in soft fabrics suitable for an invalid, and when he woke fully they bade him to try the softest, freshest of bread.

He curled from them, strength yet in his impossibly thin limbs. He watched their hands.

"You need your strength if you are to stay awake for when your father comes to see you, my Prince," Gynadrun chided him gently.

He took the food from her, mild broth was given to him, rich with marrow and ground bone. Children's milk, as well, for his bones which were as thin as a child's. The boyman drank it hungrily down. His stomach was full and sated for only a little while. He heaved and vomited it back up, struggling to turn himself so he'd not choke nor drown in his own filth.

(Fitting, fitting! The voices screeched. Jotun monsters squatting in squalor, dying in filth!)

"Get him upon his side," came a below from he knew not where. Her hands were upon him, and his, and who's? Holding him, turning him, wiping away bile and vomit. His hand--Loki could tell for it was broad and more calloused than her's, rubbed his low back soothingly, even as the deep voice cursed.

It was still wretched, and he grieved for the food that left him without nourishing him first.

(He did not trust food from their hands after that.)

When finally he collapsed in a miserable, exhausted heap, she tucked him in even as he began to snore. "And you, My Prince, what do you wish to see?"

"It is only what I see. Two people greatly diminished by the Void. One for the better, one for the worse," replied Thor, gazing down pensively.

"And both of them now children." Thor twitched. "You think it's hard to notice?" Feeble minded Loki, what a laugh.

Thor shook his head. "Nay, as much as he sleeps it is still obvious, and unlike Loki he shall not grow out of it."

"Well," she said primly, "Least this is one of them that will stay out of trouble. And we have thousands of years yet to prepare for the other." She ignored how Thor stared at her. Just as everyone knew that Loki was no good, everyone knew Thor had a soft heart and thick skull when it came to his villainous brother, for he could not see the lack of worth that was plain as Mjolnir's weight.


	3. Chapter 3

Loki had vomited, and Thor cursed their luck as the depreciated body heaved and hurt itself while everyone dithered and did not know.  But Thor had been mortal once, living in the flesh of a Doctor.  Those skills were not ones he often had to call upon, but...there was need, now.

Asgard did not have hollow needles, and Midgard had none close at hand that could pierce Asgardian flesh.  Though perhaps in his weakened state...  No, it would not be wise to risk it, and if it broke part of the ways in?  No.

But, Asgard did have sewing needles, and catgut, and knives.  The hospital was happy to aid him with such paltry things.  He felt guilty for taking from them, but pleased that he did not need so much as to be a burden.

Back as his new brother's bedside he set up the stand, the nutrition packages, saline drips, and what about Asgard that had fit his needs.

"Have you any thoughts?"  Thor looked upon shade of the man he had been, had inhabited, the lame, worthy, healer who had carried in his soul.

"This is so dark ages I want to puke," he grunted, "Catgut.  My God.  Hopefully you won't need it."

"In truth I think I will not.  We cannot trust the needle to not break should muscle contract around it, but the vessels themselves should not trouble it so.  If I have enough care a band-aid may suffice.  I only wish I could yield my body to you, but you may not have strength enough, even using Asgardian Steel."  He looked over his tools, that even he could see were paltry.  Next to the IV and small first-aid kit Thor had arrayed Grundrun's finest sewing needles which Thor was afraid he'd break, and he did not know how well he'd wield it.  Another, thicker one for leather work and armor repair that was almost the width of the hollow needle.  That one Thor was more comfortable with and hopefully it would be the only one he'd have to use.

Instead of a blade he had a hairpin, which he had flattened with Mjolnir into the thinnest blade on Asgard, for none of the daggers were fine enough to use on such papery skin.

"While we're in the dark ages, why don't we work with it.  Shame you didn't get a stethoscope."

Thor looked at the apparition, brow furrowed, his fingers still lighting rubbing the liniment into Loki's hand that he'd heal quickly.  "What do you mean?"

"Head to chest, check his glands.  Might as well be through."

Why had he not thought of this?  Why, with all his will and thought towards protection, had this not occurred to him?  Simple things--it was not as if a god had never died from pierced lungs--this should not have been a distant thought as swollen glands were.  When Loki was awake he'd examine him again.

He was no healer, no practiced man of words and knowledge for all he could go through the motions so easily.  "Do you regret it?"

"What?" Donald leaned on the memory of his cane, face twisting in confusion at the sudden change in the conversation.

"Being me, letting me be, instead of you.  Giving up your life."

Donald laughed, "No.  I mean, yes a little, but...  I'm you, or I get to be you.  I was a doctor, a pretty good one, but not someone to go down in the history books.  But you...you're Thor, you're already there.  The world can have a good doctor, or a great hero.  I know which one is better for the world."

Thor cradled Mjolnir's great head in his hands, the power to create and destroy, "It is telling, I think, that you are a middling healer and I a great warrior.  Would that I had it within me to be a great healer, perhaps things would be better, and not come to this.  That healing as well as destruction were mine to command and came as easily."

* * *

Thor refused to believe that this new Loki was an idiot as others thought.  He had thoughts, and at worst an animal cunning.  He could still reason, so Thor explained to him simply as he could his intentions.

Instead Thor ended up chastising himself for underestimating, for subconsciously demeaning the other in his mind.

As Thor had spoken under Gynadrun's watchful eye Loki had spoken.  "Mortal medicine," he had recognized it, or reasoned out that it was not Asgardian.  Loki scratched at his elbow, when Thor had told him he would make the small cut.  "Why?  There are, unless there are not.  Did things burn?  Must have, for the dead."  Irrationally the madman smiled.  "All gone, everything burned," his expression fell.  He looked at his wasted hands, "Long gone," he mourned and reached out for Thor.  "It's been a long time, I am sorry for your loss."

* * *

It was mortal medicine, of course, plastic and weak, but it was needed.  He couldn't have ice chips without Father, or screaming, because it was cold and he wasn't an ice giant except he was, but he wouldn't have anyone force it to him.  He couldn't keep anything down.

But where the healing stones?  The Soul Hearth and Forge?  Could they not make them?  Why not?  There were books.  Unless the books were all gone.  He had books, but they must be gone too.

For his funeral pyre, before they brought him back.  All of his things to keep him company on the otherside and honor him like a prince, a warrior, an Asgardian; Real.  He had a real funeral - mourned.  Missed?  All gone.

So now they needed mortal magic, and...oh.  He had been gone for a long time.

Thor had liked them, one of them, or maybe more?  Yes.  He must have made friends. Thor always made friends and left him behind, but now Loki was back and Thor was back and Father was paying attention to him sometimes.  They must be long gone, too, like his books.  It was too late, and he had caused such damage-hadn't he?  He hadn't wanted to kill the mortals, just the monsters.  He had to make sure Thor knew he was sorry, that he was sad that Thor had been sad.  Even if it was too late.

* * *

It was late, and shadows danced from the sconce, fire lighting where magic once ruled.  It was strange.  And though Loki yet recognised the healing halls for what they were it was all too cold.  He wound himself down into the bedding.  The soft skin of his elbow itched, knowing of an intruder but unable to remove it, but Loki was careful.  The needle was putting good things in, things Loki desperately needed but would not take for itself.

(He liked to imagine his own body knew how wrong their existence was - _Nothing_ survived in the Void.  He wasn’t Thor’s miracle.  He was an  _Abomination_.  He’d seen the eyes, heard the whispers.- and took steps to correct it.)

Loki chewed furtively on a bedsheet, stomach growling in hunger and hate, and watched the door.  These chambers were wide and spacious but lacked windows.  He remembered the healing halls with great, wide windows so those residing within might have their spirits lifted with every sunrise.  Loki didn’t care for the sight of a red sky rising -fireredThorred _jotun_ redbloodredbloodredblackbloodblackasblackastheVoid- but the firelight, dancing like the cheery sprites of his childhood, burned always.  

Mortals burned out.  They shined, bright and beautiful such that a god could even be ensnared by them, but then in an eyeblink-

Loki had mourned for Thor’s loss.  Tore at his tunic and left himself unwashed, unshaven, but no one  _understood_ and he had fought them as his words tumbled over one another until all he could say was  _Sorry, I’m sorry, Please.  I’m sorry._ Until Odin came forth, and even He didn’t understand, but with Loki’s chin trapped like a butterfly between Father’s fingers and  _There is nothing that need be forgiven_ Loki could not stop the wave of relief that carried him off as Thor wiped his face clean.

-Loki watched the door.  He had not seen Eir, Foremost of Asgard’s healers, Attendant to Frigga, and personal physician of the Royal Family since… he could not recall.  Before he  ~~Let Go~~ Fell.  But Eir served Frigga first, and Loki had only heard of the AllMother in passing.  She who had not come to see him.  

(She would not come to see the Monster that stole from her breast, that tainted her tricks, and struck down her true-born son.  She would not want to waste Eir’s power on a frost giant runt.)

Loki continued to nibble at his bedsheet, the cream fabric sliding against his teeth and giving them something to do as he kept watch.  The shadow that was not scampered away from the door.  

Gynadrun soon entered.  Loki watched her hands as she stripped linens, mixed honey with herbs, smiled absently at him.  Gynadrun, and Thor.  Other, nameless, healers.  Mortal magics.  Thor’s head on his chest.

They’d stopped admonishing him for chewing the sheets after he’d worked his own lips bloody.

If Asgard had burned, and the books burned, then maybe… maybe… and the mortal medicines were making him stronger, diluting the bad and filling him full of goodness.  Full of vitamins.  Full of marrowbone jelly.

(Marrow.  Bones.  Giants grind bones to bake bread, and beanstalks climbed all the way to Asgard…)  

“Gynadrun?”  Her hair looked red in the flickering light.  Loki didn’t look at it, instead focusing on deceitful hands that ripped bandages into being.

“Yes, Prince?”

He pulled a strand of hair from his head, twisted and looping around his fingers.  Sluggishly the magic sparked, like a creature rising to stretch from a long slumber.

(But his magic hadn’t been sleeping, only eating of itself, a great serpent, twisting and tangling and carving into Loki, into the Void, prolonging the inevitable that did not come.  Because Father came.  And he was  _hungry_.)

Motes of light like grains of sand.  Gynadrun jumped, as if afraid he had summoned snakes from the fire and shadow, but quickly recovered and abandoned her work to watch golden particles dance.

The ghost of an impish grin alighted his features.

* * *

The weakness of the child was disturbing.  For all his long memory, Odin could not recall the last time an Asgardian had been brought to such a frail state of existence.  Even a god not yet grown, beaten and broken, could strike like the swiftest snake with wrath filling his belly.

Though that was part of the problem: there was nothing in this Loki.  He was wasting away as the preservative -and what a strange thought that was, turning long held beliefs on their head- power of the Void’s magic lost its hold.  The child spent most of his time sleeping, and what little time awake he used clawing at his minders or himself unless Odin stood watch.

Excepting Thor, who ignored the baffled claims of the healers and pressed fingers to Loki’s wrist as though he could not trust his eyes.  Blood pulsed sluggishly through his new brother, his heart beating as lungs labored and the Thunderer did not like it.  Odin did not like how easy and familiar the motions appeared; like a warrior re-taking an old, favored weapon.  

The word pneumonia passed his lips in confusion.

It was only Odin who could call the boy back from his Wasteland of Memories, but just how deep the fissures went was in question.  The Voidborn seemed to think the littler Loki was Vali.

Gods could be killed.  Gods could be brefit of their power and so rendered mortal -for a time- but to be so frail and weak.  Such a truth would send a sliver fear down the spine of the most stalwart warrior.  Valhalla was not for the weak.  There was Life, and there was the After-Life, not this, not-Limbo, for Odin and all Aesir carved a path from death to life and all ways between.  

(Sometimes they hide for a time in mortal shells, a temporary setback, and sometimes the World ends with them, and sometimes their souls are lost to the Void, but still they return.  And they remember.  Gods Grow.)

Loki’s eyes wandered the room, sometimes squinting, examining the chamber as if it were all new -yet Asgard was old- always turning back to Odin.  The mortal medicine dripped; grating on Odin’s ears.  Such things did not belong in the realm of the gods.  Reminders of mortality that was not meant to be.  

But when healing magics of Asgard failed-

How?  They cannot fix that which is not there.

-what choice did he have?

Odin needed to spit. 

* * *

His brother-made-small had been lurking at the edges for days.  A shadow, there and gone, the trickster never entered the room his other-self lay recovering.  Such hedging was unlike this little Loki… though it was uncomfortably familiar of another, more recent, incarnation.  Thor stored up his misgivings as he walked down the hall.  He bottled the thoughts for later dissection and locked them away.  As ever, his brother was mischief incarnate and though as a child he was more forward in his actions than he would - _had_ \- been as a man words still slipped from his tongue; poisoned petals of courtesy.

Thor found him in a deserted park, one toe touching the ground as he swung at a leisurely pace.  Clouds of rust drifted up as he dug at the hard-packed dirt.  The courtyard was one of many forgotten places, and the Thunderer could hear the echoes of wooden practice swords clacking, of silenced boyhood laughter, and dropped into the the second swing with a sigh.  The wood creaked, and for the smallest second Thor thought it would give under his weight (so much greater than a small godling who’s running feet and excited cries were likened to the warning peals of the brewing storm) and all would vanish into scattered sunlight.  The memories were distant, and distorted by layers, but his brother had not the advantage of time’s dissolution.  He knew, but did not Know.  

The smile Loki turned on him was wide and clever.  If not for years of experience interpreting another trickster’s moods he might have thought it genuine.

“What troubles you, Loki?”

“I have no troubles, Thor!”  Loki exclaimed, pumping his legs and forcing the swing faster.  The smile widened.  “I  _make_ trouble.”

“Not too much.”  Thor kept his tone light and teasing.  “But you have not visited your… brother?  He asks of you.”

“And Odin spins him tales worthy of myself- ha!”  Loki paused as he rose higher, the old chains going temporarily slack before gravity reclaimed her hold.  He fell back with a clash.  “‘Tis a pun, you see?”

“Aye.”  Several moments passed.  Thor listened to the creaking of Loki’s swing and was reminded of the creaking of Loki’s lungs.  The little one’s eyebrows narrowed, a look of deep concentration and discomfort betraying the careless facade.  For anyone else a sly smile would be in place.  The swing began to slow.

“You came to find me.  You had no reason to, but you did.”

Thor said nothing.

“Everyone… I understand that I… did horrible things…” It bloomed in Thor’s mind then, like lightning, the suddenly remembered words he’d brushed off in his enthusiasm of finding his brother; words of a frightened mortal boy and his  _dreams_.  “But you came.  He doesn’t  _look_ dangerous, but what could he have done that  _his_ Thor hasn’t come?  What End could have been so Final that…  _that_ is all that’s left?  He’s so...”

Thor said nothing, his own speculations eating at the corners of his mind.

The warm circle of his arms said everything.

* * *

The magic practiced by the Aesir is a creature of power and instinct, nature dictated by will.  Gods did not need the delicate chains of Ritual and Word to accomplish their feats.  Thor did not beseech the skies when he called the Thunder.  Odin did not chant to bring the elements to heel.  Loki was not one for the  _healing_ magics, so rare was the occasion a little rest and food would not cure the ailing god, but it was more proof of the scattered mind within.

Gynadrun stood by, sweat on her brow and concentration like a shield, as golden grains of sand shifted on an invisible breeze.  Thor touched the image that floated over his drugged brother’s naked body, splayed fingers following the skeletal doppelganger.

“Wish I’d had one of these.”  Donald muttered in his ear, peering through Thor’s eyes with curiosity bridled by professional interest.  “Sterum’s been under stress, old and new, hard to tell which is which.  Recently healed fractures on the third, fourth, and fifth ribs.  Radial pattern suggests something heavy, like a… rock…”

“Or a Hammer.”

“Yeah.”  The agreement was subdued.  Gynadrun waved her hands, fingers, banded with carefully woven loops of dark hair, dancing, and organs filled in the structure.  “Okay, so that’s a little more serious than your typical transudative effusion.  Ought to get some antibiotics into his IV.  You ready for this, Thor?”

Instead of answering Thor rolled Loki onto his side -above him the generated corollary rolled as well- and swabbed his brothers skin with the mortal disinfectant.  The action was familiar, routine, and at the same time a kind of  _wrongness_ to it.  The yellow stripe stood out against pale skin like an accusation as he selected the thicker of his gathered needles.  Not quite the width of an awl; nevertheless, the heaviness reminded Thor of a sly Loki, a happy Loki, a Loki Thor held in his shaking palm as laughter filled the room and duty forced his hand.

Thor lifted his eyes to the floating image.  He pressed two fingers to Loki’s back, testing the flesh with Donald’s experience guiding him, and pushed the tip of the needle into his brother’s skin.  His eyes kept watch on Gynadrun’s illusion as the flow of sands shifted to add a representation of the needle puncturing the parietal pleura.

“Careful.”  Donald’s voice warned, ghost-like hands shepherding Thor’s.  

Thor pulled back the needle and wiped away the beading blood.  He threaded the catheter back through the hole, shunting away time-washed memories of red-stained leather, and used a syringe to begin the drainage.  Fluid murky from blood and proteins made its way through the catheter and down plastic tubing.  

“It’s done, Gynadrun.”  Thor called as he taped the draining tube to the lip of a jar.  He recalled Loki of old burning a battlefield, complaining about the mess, the blood, because blood was the basis for the oldest of magics.  Thor cared not to think of what even a novice witch could do with a god’s blood.

The light of the illusion winked out, grains drifting apart like so many motes of dust, and Gynadrun rubbed at her temples.  She then stretched her broad shoulders and began taking up all the equipment; counting tools and balling trash for the furnaces.  Her gaze lingered on the slowly filling jar.  

Helaheim was not empty, gods could die, she had seen them drown in their own blood, or like this, unknowing in their sleep as their breath ever shortened.  

There was Worth to the mortals, she admitted.  There was worth to the magics of this Loki, too.  And had not this world proved that they too could be a threat?  She did wish to learn.

“You’ve done well.  I daresay the healing halls would be well served by your presence, my Lord, and you would be most welcome.”  She smiled, teasing.  “You warriors are always so eager to leave our gentle ministrations.”

Thor rested his hand on Loki’s thigh as his sleeping brother coughed; lungs taking their full breath for the first time in too long.  He kneaded at the muscle that was only now starting to return.

“I may take you up on that.”  Donald’s words, but it was Thor’s mouth that spoke them. 


	4. Chapter 4

Loki awoke with a sigh. _Oh,_ he thought, _I like this._  He breathed again, deeply.

There was a void in him, pleasantly so, that let him partake of the sweet air.  The void of his stomach was still unhappy, true, but it was long faded into background noise for all he wanted and craved as his body upon itself caved.  

(It was in his nature to do so, for things he could not have.)

But, more than that, this was proof that bad things could be good and useful, that a Jotun that Loki, could be good and useful.

He pressed his hands to his ears, tried to drown out the wailing scream of the unbridled Bifrost with his own pulse, but even with his eyes shut tight against the Void he could still see It.  Them.  Him.  Blue creeping up, called by It, because Loki was wrong.  Because he always got it wrong.  And he could still feel it, weighty, tucked far and away close to his heart.  It was his.  Father had not asked for It back, It was his, proof of… purpose?  Not to destroy, of course.  At least, not entire realms.  He should kill their enemies, of course, just...not too many at a time?  Or perhaps it was the destruction of a planet.  He didn't know.

(He had to ask.)

Father had a purpose in everything he did.  Father took him, saved him for a reason, even if that reason had become obsolete and cast away.  Likely because of Loki’s own, innate unfit nature that not even the light of Asgard could overcome.  But Father had come for him, had saved him, again.  The Void was vast.  Plucking one lost monster from the Emptiness wasn’t something that happened on accident.  Father had saved him, and done it for a reason.  There was no other option.

(He didn't know.)

Thor had given him back his breath.

(Thor’s face had stayed with him in the black, a small comfort, for though Father had watched him Fall like an unimpressed God, Thor’s was full of regret.  Loki would never be first in Thor’s affections, but he had a place there, somewhere.  Father said he had a place Here.)

He had a purpose.  He didn't know, and this time, this time he would ask first.  This time he would get it right.

(He had to ask: why else keep me?)

* * *

 Thor’s hair was soft, and shiny, and Loki wanted to touch it.  He’d always been the golden son -the favorite with a dark horse trailing in his shadow- but when all of Asgard was covered in the precious metal it hadn’t seemed so… so…

(Out of reach.  He was reflected in the glory, the glory shone on him, so he seemed to fit in.  But where was the gold?  Burned, melted away?  Or maybe his memories were wrong.)

Loki started to cry, and he chewed on his blankets because his belly hurt when it clenched and heaved because he was crying.  He was wrong.  He couldn't remember and couldn't think.  He...he knew what he was, before.  He had been so clever.  And now he couldn't even think straight.

Thor held his hands, pulled his blankets from his teeth and told him to spit.  Gave him water to drink.  Looked at the tiny mark on his skin where the needle had been; it should have healed by now.  He mustn't get dehydrated.  His balance in life was precarious enough as it was.  If Father didn't need him - (and Father must because Father rescued him) - then Loki would turn it down and wait for time to finish what t(he) Void had started.

Loki was a monster, monsters should die, rabid animals to be put down.

Thor tapped his chest.  Then tapped his nose.  Smiled, beat the dark thoughts with such a simple thing, and tempted a smile in return.  His brother looked tired, but pleased.  “You’re sounding much better.  I had been worried that the fluids would come back, they sometimes do, but it seems I needn't have.”

"A monstrous constitution have I," Loki said, smiling, tears drying in the space of a few moments.  But his thoughts were still in his head, lingering echoes until he forgot, until they were blinded and blasted away by the Light of Asgard.  He wanted to ask if he'd ever get better.  Wanted to ask for some crumb of hope.  But he knew there was none, knew he'd never be the man he was in mind before The Fall.  Thor was smiling at him, and it always made him happy, he didn't want the smile to stop.  If he asked, it would wither, like flowers in a frost-

Or, no, because frost dusted and preserved so it would still be beautiful only dead.  A lie.  Thor would smile and it would not reach his eyes, Loki would have killed it and Loki only wanted to kill monsters.  Thor couldn’t be a lie Loki was a lie but he was going to be the not-a-lie no secrets.

-Thor was looking at Loki’s fingers, trimming his nails back to a pathetic length, for it was safer to remove the claws from the monster.  But it felt nice and Thor's hands were warm.  He was careful, gentle, like he was holding a little bird.  Pretending he was tame.  Loki could pretend too, he was good at that; at least until it all came crumbling down.  Loki wanted just to be a tame beast so he could stay, so he could belong.  Monsters did not belong in Asgard, but Father had pets.  Wolves and War Horses, Ravens and Serpents, and all sorts of beasts in the menagerie.  One little Frost Giant would complete the collection, surely.  Then he could stay.

(Or maybe - two?  A pair.  But the littlest one didn’t count.  His son was only half monster, after all.  He was safe.  He had to be safe.)

Father had saved him, but it was a different sort of danger.  A frying pan.  

“Loki,” Thor was was rubbing his feet now, working up his calves and asking him flex.  To stretch.  Like he had been doing for a week now, duties permitting.  “Have you been eating?”

He didn’t want to kill it, but he had promised - “Some.”

“Trickster.”  Except it was said with warmth, and  he felt like a child.  He was a child, helpless and weak and vulnerable, and Thor was looking down at him saying when I am King, and but you’re just a Little brother, you’ll get stepped on! and Loooki- “Speak the truth.  Speak it plain. I will not be upset.”

Thor used to make promises like that, late in the night, with a wooden sword in hand and an oath of silence.  What kind of baby had nightmares of snow?  They’d never even seen it!  

(He had made Thor an Oathbreaker.  On accident.)

“They bring me soup.”  Loki said instead.  “Soup, and broth.”

Thor sighed and shook his head, long golden threads dangling like strands of sunlight.  “Your stomach is long out of practice, it will be some time before you can handle anything heartier.”

Loki’s newly trimmed nails scraped ineffectually against the crook of his arm, and mark that hadn’t healed.  Well he knew how his body rightly hated him, how his insides would twist and expel whatever sustenance his brother brought.  But everyone loved Thor, and Asgard was the guiding light -bright and strong, still, if changed from what he thought- and it was their sworn duty to slay the monsters.

“It’s soup.  And I’m, I…”  The word floated in his mouth, plugging it like a ball of cotton as his mind buzzed.  Hands, closed.  Skirts, and pockets, and hands.  Over hearts.  On throats.  Holding blades.

Thor held him, stroked his hair and rocked him like a child.  Like a big brother who promised to slay whatever frightening frost giant manifested in the night.  “Tell me.”

Loki was tired.  His mind swam through blurring maybe-memories.  “Thallium has no flavor.”

* * *

Breath was life, and strength and wellness seemed to trickle into Thor's newest brother now that he could breathe.  But, now that he had more energy to spare he spent it as Lokis always did, on thoughts and brooding.  Oh he could be cheerful as any, delighting in the simple taste of air and his new found ability to sit up.  Yet, he was still given to bouts of depression and worry.

He also would not eat.  He looked distrustfully upon anything they offered, even water sometimes, though he no longer lost his breath so easily.  When anyone besides the Allfather brought forth ice he screamed, an unearthly sound shrill and whistling in rage.

"You must be the one to feed him, Father, else all our efforts are for naught.  He will wither and die without fuel, and he will not take it from another's hand."  He searched the Allfather's wizened face and found the give of granite.  "It's not as if I'm asking you to change his bedpan," which was strangely unnecessary in the first place.

Thus the Allfather found himself cast as a Father once more.  Children grew up so fast, one moment cradled in your arms, the next running about killing giant rats in cellars, practicing their weapons training for spending money, no longer children.

It was an ill sitting amusement, like one of Loki's pranks, that he was coddling this Loki like a child, this Loki who could not yet walk.  Perhaps that was what inspired him to dip some clean cloth into the broth for Loki to suck from, like how he gave Thor milk when his teeth had grown in and no wet nurse would have him for the fierceness of his gnawing.

It reminded him, also, of war and fell injury, it made him almost laugh, "Mayhap I should see if Geri would suckle you, your bones need strength."  The boy rolled his shoulders back at this, like it was a great compliment, and cringed, all at once.  It could work, the wolf bitch certainly seemed fond of this Loki, and often made sure he was warm by laying beside him, watching him.  Freki was more suspicious and watchful.

After a few days of this Loki was looking better, and more anxious.  It was aggravating; this mercurial set of moods.  Loki's paranoia was making him paranoid in turn, and what had once been a soothing duty only made him tense.  "What is it, boy?  Spit it out."

"I...I do not mean to speak against you, or question you, truly I do not.  And I thank you so much for taking my son in I am sorry and...I just...I wish you had told me, before, what I was, that I was not yours, that I am..what I am.  Then I would not have presumed.  I would not have thought I'd, I swear, I promise..."  He started crying, crying, liar, liar lies, everything.  God of lies was a lie, could not help but to lie with every breath.  Because he was lying now, he was horrible.  Lying to his Father, his Lord, his Savior and Protector.  Because he knew, he KNEW he'd still try to earn his respect and love, even though he did not deserve it.

(That was his nature, to want what he could not have, to do wrong in trespass.)

Odin did not know what to think.  Did not know why, could not guess at the Other Odin's thoughts.  It was plain from the boy's words that he had thought himself Odin's blood--perhaps not even knowing that he was a Jotun, or perhaps he thought himself to take after Bestla and fathered again on another Frost giant?  The thought of having Loki from such a young age, when he was more malleable, when he could have cradled him in his arms by the fireside and gazed upon him, all still innocent, was intriguing.  But, why would the other hide such a thing from him.  What course had he plotted, what purpose had he conceived?

Odin brushed Loki’s hair away, unknotted fingers from mane, his touch a strange anchor. "You now know, and you are home, and I've claimed the child as my own, but it would not be untoward for you to take a hand in raising him once you feel better."  A drop of responsibility to keep them out of trouble, or in trouble together.

"He is half Aesir," Loki murmured, telling himself it with a tone like discovery, Father's touch fading slowly from his awareness.  "But the sound strings and the blood rings--"

Odin had not the patience for the words, nor the spoon which bruised and cut the child's mouth, so he silenced the nonsense with his fingers, dripping with soup, silencing his mad ramblings before they gained strength.  Besides, the touch, the salt of his skin- 

_Though Fire and venom melted the ice from which they came forth, it was the ice that was the fundement, and the salt in it that Audhumla subsisted upon_.

-entering the boy made it easier to feed the child so he could grow and repair the gaps in his being, the tattered remains of godhood that Odin, that the Odinforce could provide the essence to be woven anew.  He could render a god mortal, and so a mortal god into godhood once more.  It was just trickier in this respect.  "Ackt, Freki, begone you beast," Odin nudged the wolf with his knee while lifting up the bowl before the wolf could get his snout into it.  "You eat from my plate but this is not mine, get gone you beast." 

Loki shifted, turning his light body to look upon the wolf in askance as it nosed the plate, lapping at the ring of spilled soup-

_He had been surprised by the wolves, before.  How did he not know the wolves when he knew Odin?  What was Odin without his loyal friends?_

-and then promptly disgorged chunk of meat from dinner, well and truly broken down by his stomach.  Odin almost groaned, but, "Perhaps there is merit to the idea."  Even gods were born without teeth, and they did not have babyfood- not the mashed and disinfected stuff from earth.  They nursed a well and long time when they could, but if not...

The wolves' stomach broke down the meat to be even easier to digest than ground meat, and it was meat from his own plate so he knew it to be good.  Loki had been hungry, because even seeing what the wolf did he had brightened up at the prospect of something a bit more solid.   He snorted a little amused, "I  _did_ say I should add Geri's milk to your feed."  The milk one could get from the mortal cows was thin and frankly disgusting from all they did to it, pouring like water, creamless.  Besides, was there not a story of a prince drinking from a wolf?  It appealed.

(What were they, but stories?  A traitorous, tricksy part of Odin whispered from the shadow of forgotten lives.)

He pinched some of it up and dipped it into the soup, and held it to Loki's mouth.

Loki looked to his hand, and then shyly up, sunken green eyes hopeful, his lips curving into a smile.  "Am I to be your dog, then?"

* * *

Loki watched Father and Other Loki from the doorway.  The other spoke too quietly to be heard, whispered simpers as he pawed in askance at Father’s knee, but Loki did hear Odin spin lies and twist truths to accommodate the mad one's delusions.  Then the Allfather stiffened as if Zeus had planted one of his lightning bolts up his ass.

(The thought amused a nasty sadistic part of Loki, that had apparently grown a great deal when he was his older self.  Loki resolved to quash it.)

"No," the Allfather hissed.  "No.  You're not, you're," it was the closest Loki had ever seen Odin come to sputtering.  "You are my son, both of you, all of you.  Not that, never that."

The other one’s lip trembled.  Confusion and a deep despair welling up into his eyes, spilling over to track down the sides of his too-thin, hungry face.  A wonder, or a ruse?  God of Tricks, of Lies and Destruction.  This was nothing like the proud, evil prince he’d heard tell of.  Thor was too kindhearted -not soft, he wasn’t all that daft- and would easily fall for the whimpering Loki in distress.  It had to be a trap.

(But that one had been alone.  Even death allowed some companions within the Feast Halls of Hel, or Valhalla, and even Limbo offered up fields of battle to occupy the deceased.  But Loki had been alone, with no Thor.  What was a Loki without Thor?)

Odin dismissed his companions with an annoyed clucking of the tongue.  Geri licked a strip along Loki’s face before hopping off the bed and following Freki out the door.  The wolves brushed past him, Freki’s shoulder knocking into his thighs, upsetting his balance and sending him into the wall.  The great, shaggy tail struck his legs like a club, stinging.  Loki glared at the beasts as they continued on, Geri nipping at Freki’s ear in admonishment.  Or maybe congratulations.  Loki never understood those creatures; even if Thor had begrudgingly admitted that when he was Old and Evil he’d sired an even larger one.  Though his brother refused to reveal the particulars as to how such a thing happened.

Loki shook out his leg and crept back to the door.  The bowl had been set aside, and instead of pawing at Father’s leg in supplication the Other had pulled himself back.  Curled, chin on his knees, hair falling in a disarrayed waterfall.  Sniffles!  Loki had missed something, and it ate at him like Volstagg at a midgardian buffet.

Odin was not reaching for Loki.

“You are my son.”  Odin sat on the bed, voice stern instead of amused or gentle.  Slivers of peridot peered through the black.  “My. Son.”

"Vali," he gasped out, hands twitching in his covers.  "ValiLoki, he doesn't count, he doesn'tmustn't."  The Other covered his face with his hands, neatly trimmed fingernails digging in as the hysteria started.  "He's half, can't count.  Please," he gasped, clawing at his face.

Loki tuned out the mad babble and Odin's tsking.  Just what did that mean, Loki thought.  He was Odin’s son, but he was not Odinson, or now Lokason, as Odin lied and weaved for his mad-boy.  Truth: he was Laufeyson, and to be Laufey’s son was not an existence of privilege or pleasure.  That was an existence more akin to a beaten dog, starved and alone and… Jotunheim was stupid.

Laufey was good for one thing, hiding him so the others wouldn't eat him.  Really, Asgard was so much better, and Odin didn't even have he and Thor fight each other to get the best portions of food, not even when Loki put on more weight.  Thor was already Odin's favorite, and that was fine, Loki was Thor's favorite- he nodded to himself, punctuating the thought with physicality.  Thor brought him back, Thor saved him, Thor loved him.

He rather forgot what the older him said when in his instructions, they seemed silly and pointless right now, and they had seemed so even in his past.  He had fond memories of the war camp after Odin adopted him, actually--full of good food and he had only been hit once the entire trip to Asgard.

Then he had met Thor, and Thor smiled at him, eager, not hungry, and Loki had looked upon him sullenly, remembering that this was to be his enemy.  But he wasn't.

The memories made him feel wonderfully warm inside.

Manipulating Thor...Obviously Older him had forgotten too.  How much fun Thor was, how wonderful.  How Thor liked him more when Loki forgot the instructions and was himself.  How they were both happier then.

He missed those adventures.

"You like them, though," he whispered, "You like them.  First and Second and you don't make distinctions.  You like them, pleased with them.  Nngh-" and the word and breath died in the Other's mouth, his throat, and he was so still he wasn’t quite real, not quite alive.  

(Sometimes, only sometimes, Loki wondered if it would be better, easier, to lay his head on a pillow of the granite and just let Thor swing.  Only Thor, though.  If Loki was destined to be what he was -what he refused to be again- it would save everyone time.  Grief.  False hope.  But then who would be there to stop Thor from doing something stupid?  Thor would probably do something ridiculous and heroic, like trade his soul, and the honorable bastard would then keep to his deal because he was Thor.  His brother was clever, in his way, but he wasn’t sly.  Thor needed a Loki as much as Lokis needed a Thor.)

Unlike Thor, Father didn’t hold Loki.  At times he would hug him, mostly pat his head, or thigh, but never hold.  He wasn’t holding him now.  

(Even Loki could see that it, something, was wrong.  From the shadow he could see that wide open hole in the other, the hunger and starvation that wasn't for food. He was only now learning to recognize that hunger in anyone.)

(He wished he could spend more time with Thor.)

“Loki.”  There was magic in that word, and even the mortals knew that to know a things name was to hold some measure of power over it.  The Other’s eyes sharpened, mouth moving in the familiar shape of you came.  “For everything there is a season.”

“A reason.”  Grasping.

Odin inclined his head.  “For now, your purpose is to get well.  After that, well, we will speak again.”   

(It was a drop, and Loki saw how it covered up the hole, how even that made him grateful.)

“So please stop biting your healers.”


	5. Chapter 5

Fine furs were not so easy to come upon any more. While the lands resurrected were wide they were not the vastness he and Loki had traversed in their youths, hunting migas and wolves for trade and coin, and the myriad of beasts that once populated those lands were, for the moment, scarce and scrawny things. Perhaps, perhaps if they minded themselves carefully Asgard could survive on its own. But they liked to feast, liked their material joys, and liked humans, so they made trade with the land Thor loved.

Still, such things were to be found, and bought, and Thor implored his friends, that when they had the time, to take the bifrost back to the continent and hunt there for such comforting things.

(Odin could bring the whole of the land down, or raise the whole of Asgard back up. He did neither.)

"Loki?" Loki leaned out, peering around Thor as brother tucked him in after he had his terrors. Brother turned around just as the shadow sought to escape, and with a laugh took him up, all long limbs and baby cheeks and complaining that he wasn't a baby. And pouting.

Loki had made something good and wonderful in fathering this child, and he felt all watery inside. He fingered the soft comforting furs atop him, counting each strand.

Thor sat beside the bed, rapscallion held firm in his arms, and Loki held his own out for him and Thor, after hesitating, put Loki down next to Loki. Good child, warm and pouting, hair dark and soft as down, like a baby bird. Loki hugged him with one arm, even though he was far too boney, and tugged blankets over the littlest; swaddling with all the care and precision dark nights spent wrestling nightmares could impart.

Keep him warm; safe from ice.

He smiled winningly at Thor, humming a bit of spell he had been working on, "Story?"

The pouting intensified and Loki managed to not laugh. It was impressive. "Why would you want that? We are not babies, after all."

Now Loki did laugh, but did not kiss his head, because he did not want the little one's face to get stuck that way. He rested his hand on the boy's far shoulder, and counted the bumps of his spine. "Learning yet, and stories teach. Right from wrong and wrong from right. Nobility, and cunning. What acts wrought and what they are worth."

They were quiet then, thoughtful, and Loki was glad of this proof that he was not completely addle minded.

"We _are_ stories, after all," the boy mused.

Loki did not find this odd at all. He nodded, "Act it out, call the players," be the hero. Except he wasn't. He knew how the stories went, increasing tension, peak of action, the valiant hero saving the day, taking revenge, killing everyone and being feted.

He wanted to be the hero, arranged everything just so, just like the tales. Loki's breath came quicker and the room flickered, his eyes jumping madly about. Monster. Monster! But the boy, his, close; his Vali, his Loki, who banished the cold blue and made him right. "Story," he demanded, more firmly, unsmiling, trying not to be shrill as he clutched his son like a talisman, as if to both protect and be protected.

Thor's big voice, big storms, thunder and peace, omnipresent noise when everything had been gone quite quiet death and done for so long. "About what?" Whitenoise. A washing noise, a rumble that held, and soothed, and pried sticks from flesh.

He knew he knew. He needed to learn though. He remembered, but he was wrong. So he had to learn, to re-learn and fix the foundation after -

 _Sparkles. Bits of shattered light lost to the black gnats that ate his mind, but he couldn’t fix it. He didn’t have the tools, wasn’t, and father wouldn’t, Thor wouldn’t… but he did andtheydid and_ what are monsters made of?

\- "Bridges," whispered he.

"Bridges," said Thor, and Loki flinched.

* * *

It had been going so well today, too. Not well, not actually, any day Loki had a screaming fit that Thor needed to grab him from behind to keep him under control and unharmed--he tried to hurt himself those times.

 _Stimming,_ Donald whispered into his ear.

He had been recovering well, coming down from the rage, but already, who knew what was going on in that head of his, he was teetering on the edge of a crying fit, if Thor had his guess.

"Bridges," a few ideas coming to mind...

 _If you try to tell him that story about Volstagg and Hogun I will punch you in the face,_ the thoughts were almost like a blow, so vehement were they. _He's afraid, so you don't tell him any damn stories about bridges that are frightening. Something more childish. No, nothing like **that**._

Humans, Thor thought, coddled their children and washed all blood from their stories. It was annoying. But he admitted that their children were also shielded from blood _I assure you, Loki has seen many battles already, both of them. We had already gone on many fine adventures at that age. ...But I acknowledge that he is afraid, and you are right, I should not voice anything too upsetting. Or familiar._

Donald harrumphed. _Or wrongly familiar...What about the Billy Goats Gruff?_

_...Goats?_

Thor really liked goats. Baby goats were second only in cuteness to the Thunder God cooing over baby goats.

* * *

The tale was unfamiliar to them. All of them. Donald did not know the story, not really, he just knew of it, and the basic outline.

Fortunately, Thor came from a culture of storytellers and braggarts. It was easy to expand upon, especially when he has such perfect models in front of him.

"This is the tale of The Three Goats of Gruff," Four eyes fixed upon him, little Lokis, still harmless. "There had been a long hard winter. So cold and icy that it even froze in the south where the three brothers spent their winters. They shook the ice from their beards and stomped their hooves on the ice, clip, clop, clomp. Everything was melting, and everything was becoming new and young again, so they turned their noses north to their home. Their fields which would be rolling and ripe with the most perfect of succulents to fatten them up again. So off they went, rambling and roving, trip, trap, tromp. Sometime miles apart, each finding the paths that best suited them, because they were different from one another, step, stamp, stomp. But always and ever forwards, for they were goats one and all, stubborn, strong, and independent. But ever together, too; for they were brothers, no matter how far they ranged, or how stubborn their heads."

"It was the youngest who reached the headlands first, where the rivers would swell up from the earth and make the whole land fertile, where he would eat and grow fat again. But first he had to cross one of the rivers to get there. Fortunately, there was a bridge, old solid stone, and he crossed it, _clip clip clip_."

* * *

It was a tale for children, certainly, but trapped as he was by the blankets swaddling him and the fine steel of his other’s arms Loki found himself inextricably drawn in. It was strange to listen to Thor’s voice, so thick with emotion yet not a drop of blood, and doubly strange to watch his big brother’s index and middle finger curve and prance along the mad one’s stretched out leg: _clip, clop, clomp!_

“Cleverness.” Loki whispered happily in his ear, hugging him so close it was almost painful. It was a good kind of pain, though, a comforting pressure after the moments of fright and he let the other’s humming weave into the cadence of Thor’s words. Strange.

It was a story all too easy to believe. Three brothers -his heart hurt, and Loki’s cheek rubbed against the top of his head- it was all too easy to see. A littlest Loki, but he was of course not named such, bounding back home after a winter away. Roads of mud and green, green grass caught in his hooves and the long strands of his winter coat. Up hills and down, splashing in puddles along the way, the littlest Loki soon came to the final bridge home.

But there was a guardian that had not been there before, and the world of the story wavered like water in the desert as the bigger Loki shivered and pressed his face in the younger trickster’s neck. He whimpered, and his breath was alarmingly cold.

The littlest buckling was small, of course, with tiny blunt nubs on his head. He was no match for the Troll -it was covered in pustules and flakes of shale, like a rotting fish Loki was sure- yet what the goat lacked in build he made up for in his silver tongue. "Oh bridge keeper, would that I could pay you, but I am separated from my family, and too young to carry the purse. Though tender I may be in my youth, I am small from the winter and cannot pay your wage either way. But harken, my brothers come, and your just due can be paid." And Thor, Thor’s eyes sparkled like sunlight hitting waves as he stared down at _his_ littlest Loki, hands fluttering through the air in the vaguest of gestures. He was caught by the movements, by the warmth he was wrapped in, and a bud of memory buried by time and death and hate crawled forward to blossom into vibrancy.

He had been small, and learning what it meant to be cold. His stomach was full but his hands were even smaller than they were now and newly pink. Thor, for it had to be Thor, had round cheeks and bright blue eyes and was gesturing with a short sword, blunted though it was. “ _So you see, little brother-_ ” Thor had been so happy, the novelty of having a brother he could admit to shiny and new. “ _-the great Ymir could not be defeated in combat! It was only with cleverness and cunning that Father and our Uncles were able to best such a warrior.”_

“ _That is not how they tell it at ho- in Jotunheim.”_ Loki had offered mulishly, both offended and pleased.

_“Then what do they say?”_

Stories, gods and goats were naught but stories, and Loki skipped his way home from the clutches of the evil, stupid, bridge troll - _clip, clip, clip!_ \- to await his brothers’ return.

The yearling came to the bridge, bigger than the littlest brother but all skinny legs and knobby knees. A shrewd, suspicious Loki was he with careful steps and cautious eyes. Still, the troll once again burst through the stone, rising up from the ground to demand the toll with its rotting breath.

They leaned forward, pulled toward Thor-the-Tale-Teller, and Loki squirmed. The Troll had already missed one meal, surely he wouldn’t be so stupid to allow their brother freedom? But, lo, the goat was nothing but a drop of marrow and a handful of bones; far from a meal worth such a great creature’s time! Surely the Troll would be better served to collect once the goat had eaten his fill on the green hills, and once again had to go south for winter? Loki smiled wistfully, and the smaller could feel the upturn of lips against the back of his head. The middle brother pranced homeward leaving the bewildered troll to await a truly scrumptious meal - if he could take it. _Tramp, tramp, tramp!_

Loki yawned, and Loki took the opportunity to wiggle his way to freedom like a moth crawling from the cocoon.

Then - _Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!_ \- the oldest billygoat approached the bridge, head and horns held proud, announcing his presence with every thundering step. Once again the Troll rose from the bridge, hulking and hunched with sharp, smiling teeth. The little billygoats had told true: their older brother was massive and could feed the Troll for weeks.

Only the Loki’s had not told the vile bridge keeper of their brother’s horns, fine and thick, or the sharpness and quickness of his hooves.

* * *

Odin listens to Thor’s story through Munin. The ravens keep an eye on his newest son when he cannot, when his wolves are hunting, and it seems a balm on the worst of the madness. A soft, sharp wingbeat against pale cheek. Shiny black eyes, inhuman, _safe_ , pools of ink brimming with potential act as Loki’s touchstone to Asgard; tiny, irreverent tongues spilling Odin’s own -embarrassing- tales of mischief to call him back when his mind goes adrift.

His greatest son has some little talent as a storyteller, though he speaks with the briefest limp in his tongue as he works to fill in the blank spaces. There is a softness there.  His heir is performing a role more suited to a mother, a maid; he could be a ensorcelling the tricksters for all that those bud-bright eyes fasten to Thor’s words. Little goats. Big goats. Big goats that always come for little brothers…

Hugin glides in through the door silent as thought. He perches on Odin’s shoulder, his talons easily finding purchase in the armor, and whispers of creeping darkness, of battle that is not battle, of Midgard at unrest.

Is it not always?

There is a lady in red, or is it a red lady? His raven bobs its head with a sharp chuckle.

“You are hopeless.” The words roll out of his mouth with a gritty fondness.

“They’re looking for something, boss.” Hugin accepts a sliver of bread, grainy crust cracking against his beak before he tilts his head back and swallows it down. “Something old. Something ours.”

Odin gave the feathery head a stroke as he continued to peer out of Munin’s eye. At last Loki was asleep, true sleep, not that dozing exhaustion he so often fell into. The little one was wriggling to freedom. Thor was a good brother to care for his younger siblings so, even if they (probably) would only disappoint him in the end. Telling tales.

He used to listen to the stories of his brothers, gathered around the fire, alone but for a handful of guards as Bor went campaigning. Silly stories, fewer goats, more blood. A brother on either side. Truer stories, insomuch as gods were true. Stories teach, Thor taught that he would come. The stories of Odin's childhood taught fear. When each story ended there would be another, more terrible than the last.

At his sides were hollow spaces, now, nothing but metal and hide to guard him. Wolves, and wind, and ahead the endless road untraveled. Bor had been the mountain of his youth -  _AllFather, Founder of Asgard, the Beast of the Battlefield_ \- but now few spoke of his Father. It was Odin Borson, Odin AllFather. A monolith of legend standing strong and alone.

He had not been a very good brother.

* * *

Soon, there was color in Loki's cheeks, which stopped being quite so caved in. He could sit up for longer periods of time without his legs falling asleep. The bowl of his hips (too open to be a man's, so he resolutely did not look) began to fill in, and did not bulge with every sip of water.

But most impressively, Loki could now shuffle around without help. He couldn't cross a room by himself without resting yet, but it was a vast improvement.

Thor would make sure Loki had many places to rest. "I am going to get for him a cane, but I have witnessed humans leave theirs behind, relishing, in moments of strength. Would you care to help me design his rooms," Thor asked his littlest brother, though he likely outweighed the taller one yet. He had been hiding, loitering, in the stables as was his wont of late. "Perhaps modeled after your own?"

* * *

The little trickster wrinkled his nose and leaned back, hands gripping an empty goat pen for balance. “I think not. A tower has too many winding stairs-” And his in particular had a few walls blown out for a nice healthy breeze, as well as spots of missing flooring to make quicker transitioning between levels. “-for a convalescent. But perhaps some shelving for books and shiny things and several of those Midgardian bags of beans.”

If his other self was to fall, let it be on that which would give under his weight.

“Furs.” Thor added, astute in some ways more than others. “And for the floor as well. Perhaps many layers, staggered, to cushion his feet?”

“You may have a fetish, brother, but ‘tis true he is most sensitive to the cold.” And no matter how hot the furnaces burned in Asgard’s depths the stone was always cold in the mornings. The other’s shape changing was a strange thing, so unstable, though it might have been the Void’s influence. His skin blossomed blue at any chill stronger than a wind, lines emerging like angry blisters, and the older Loki would whine like a wounded animal until it was rubbed away.

Or until he would scrabble at the offending patches with broken nails till red erased it.

At first Loki had thought them fell. Lines of torture--fire or acid for they were too straight for the lash. Too symmetrical as well, but that did not rule out ritual.

They could put in wood paneling, something dark, but not too dark, light sources… Loki walked in a circle as he had seen done on the television. “Rosewood? Stained Ash?” He stopped, faced his brother with a clap of hands as an idea unrolled in his mind like a fine tapestry. “Leah! Come, brother! We must consult the lady of the cavern for her wise decorative advice!”

Loki felt a bubble form in his chest. It grew as he listened to Thor’s heavier trudge, buoying his skipping feet as they headed for gate. Thor wanted fur. Loki could see the appeal but the number of hides needed for his brother’s plans was a little excessive for a quick hunting trip, even with the Thunderer’s friends helping. Then there was the curing and the stretching and the oiling.

Yes, Leah would know how to proceed! And if not her, the scribes of the internet!

* * *

Loki looked about his new room, weakly lifting his head from Thor's bicep. His brow furrowed briefly as his gaze tripped and tumbled on unfamiliar terrain. "Oh," he said as he sagged back in his brother's arms. "Yes, of course, everything burned." Thor was looking down at him and Loki dared to lift his face. "Will I, I mean, may I, my...I still have some of my old knives, I think," he could feel them twisted between his own personal strands, held firmly in place like the Casket. Loki plucked at his hands, stared at his fingertips.

"Loki?"

"Should I give them over?" Loki whispered, not looking up. Father found him, Father CAME. "How lost am I?" How much had he lost, still an Odinson, so maybe still a man? Or would this...

"All others gone, proper send off," he smiled happily, that Father gave his Jotun son a proper, Asgardian warrior's send off--even if it meant that most of his belongings were burnt, and sent over into the Void with him.

"Loki? LOKI," Thor was hurting him, but it was not a very bad hurt. Just holding him too hard. When had they reached the bed? The blankets were really, truly, nice and warm and heavy around him. Thor gave him a cup of water, which was fine and soothing for his suddenly sore throat.  Thor was looking at him, and Loki did not like not being able to read his expression. When had he become so thick against him?

"Thank you," he offered, heartfelt for the small kindness, politeness to soothe Thor's ruffled feathers. Though the helm was no where in sight Loki started to giggle until Thor touched him gently on the shoulder. Loki looked upon him once more, stifling his laughter. The touch was gentle, on his shoulder as a comrade and not...Brother was calling his name again, and Loki struggled to focus. "Yes?"

"When you wish, you may give over one of your blades to me, and I shall have a new set forged for you in their likeness, if that is your wish."

Loki grinned and threw his meager weight to one side so he could lean against his brother, wiggling one arm out to embrace him. That was all the answer both of them needed.

* * *

 

Loki wished to stay abed. Thor came, and Littlest Loki came, and Father came. Father came and fed him and Geri draped by his side to keep him warm, ivory teeth smushed against his shoulder. Sometimes he saw the others, Sif peeking at him while Thor sat with him. Volstaag setting some broth at his bedside. They were different.

When he was weak they showed their care, making up for past ~~misdeeds~~ things. But if he stayed they would become upset, or bored with him. Again. Thor would go to his loyal friends and only call him at need.

But if he stayed in bed, he'd be a disappointment again.

He padded out of his room, clinging to walls, a scarecrow, a wraith, a foul amalgamation of sticks illy tied together in leather bag, covered with fine rags to hide the abomination from proper eyes.

(Too small for a proper giant. Left to die. A failure, a monster even to monsters. Look how it apes real people, put it in clothes and it thinks it is a person. Loki Silvertongue tarnished. Loki of Nothing. Is worth nothing. Loki of the Vo... )

Loki couldn't hide from Heimdall yet, he was too tired, even walking made him dazed. The sheet he held over his shoulders probably weighed more than him. He made sure the drawstring of his pants were tight this time, and draped the knotted cord in the bowl of his hips.

Then he went to find Father.

Hallways were nice, he decided the third time he had to stop. Always something close by to lean against and catch his breath, and usually a nook or drape for him to hide behind when he heard voices. When he saw warriors. Or the reflection of his own self in the shine of their armor.

They'd surely put him out of his misery; even if he'd make a paltry trophy. His weakness was his protection for no warrior would bother to battle a creature with so little fight in it.

Still, he watched their hands and hunched his shoulders, he did not tremble, and he was proud that he did not, though it might have more to do with physical weakness than mental strength. Even a good wind could cut Loki to ribbons and rattle his bones like dice in the cup. His thoughts chased shadows, chased themselves, scattered wits and drifting ash on his tongue and in his ears. They whispered, yes, but he had _Father_.

(He had to find him.)

He watched their hands.

He could not stand to see what poison lurked in their eyes; hate, pity, or nothing at all.

He was a nothing, a cold emptiness that carved out his middle and ate and ate and ate and devoured heat and light and Father came. Father would make him anew. Make him _right._

One foot, then the other.

* * *

Sometimes his son crept in, circling wide around the bed then coming close once he was opposite of where Father lurked. Little Loki pressed close, and Loki tugged on him so he'd climb up--the boy was so blessedly warm and Loki was so damnably cold. Loki wished he knew who his mother was, if she was, and he could not remember-!

"I'm sorry I was not at your name day, but I'm glad that you were given my name," that you were taken in and-

_I was loved enough._

Loki trailed off as he realized that it might have been a brand. “Fire fire, you're so warm, fire brand, so sor-” Loki covered his mouth gently, and Loki stopped talking. "You're my first born. I was going to name you Vali, because it sounds like Uncle Vili's name and-and-" the rush of words, of how Uncle had laughed, and picked him up, and been kind to him for a little while, and how he wanted to honor Father and...

Even the babble of his mind died away, because Father was staring at him, eye shining with something unfathomable.

The bed dipped as Father joined them, a shifting of weight as he pulled them into the gravity well of his protection. His hand touched down on Loki’s shoulder and his thumb rubbed soothingly against the base of his son’s neck where the bones still stood stark under skin.

Loki squirmed uncomfortably so that his bottom was sitting more on the soft feather bed and less on the boney lap of his elder, his legs stretched across. A bridge between generations. His son spoke up, suddenly and with a curious almost wondering lilt, “You knew Lord Vili?”

Father squeezed the little one’s foot, eye both shining and dark, and Loki ~~cringed~~ clung closer to his sire’s side.

Loki frowned. Generations. Thor was so much older, so Father then must be truly ancient but - _he had a son, grown and clever and right and warm-!_ he was Father. The Void swarmed up, crept out his eyes, cold and wet. Uncle Vili was not Father. He had died. Of course he had died. How could he have forgotten? Vili would have agreed with him, Uncle Vili would have been able to convince Father of the truth and then he would not, wouldn’t have…

_-Pink, pale pink, never blue. Lived the lie and the lie bliss bliss bliss. Father knew, but Thor didn’t, and now Thor is better, best. EverythingForAPurpose._

_He had_ Purpose. _-_

“I am sorry you did not get a chance to know him.” Loki cuddled his boy and imagined them all sitting in the AllMother’s garden. Uncle would have a small creature of some sort in his pocket, the scar on his cheek pulling white as he smiled, and the day would be filled with stories of then far-off realms. Barren moons and lost worlds. “He was a strong, kind man.”

Father’s hand on his shoulder. Father’s fingers winding up in his hair. Magic falling, winding along his spine, settling in his belly. A spell of soothing. Father’s voice; a deep, teasing tone. “Why not tell a story? It had been long since I’ve heard the deeds of my brother. Are you not the Silvertongue of Asgard, my son?”

The name did not bite when Father said it, when anyone said it all, anymore. It was a nice thing, a kind thing, and sometimes he would dwell on it, but there was something else laced in the question. It was something that didn’t seem real, right, coming from Father. Maybe it wasn’t there at all. Perhaps he was mistaken. Father was… _strong._

Loki felt his lips, no longer so broken and chapped but softened and shining with new flesh, lift at the corners. He hadn’t yet the strength to illustrate with illusions but he had words. He could tell the story of when Uncle Vili had returned from the inter-realm talks in Nornheim and the bed of snakes hidden in his belt pouch with marvelous marbles colors as planets moons and realms. Babies the color of gemstones, and he had given Loki an emerald.

“Jormungand was so small, but when he came out of the pouch he was wrapped around a marble shaped just like Midgard.” Loki teased, holding Loki’s hand in his own, comparing their length and breadth. “Shorter than even your fingers. Thor thought he was a worm, and we spent nearly a whole week digging in the riverbank looking for more rainbow worms…”

Little Loki was smirking.

Father was not. Father’s hand was hot on his shoulder, but his eye was looking at something Loki couldn’t see.

- _ ~~Frost giants in the vault~~_ -

“Father?”

What had he done wrong, now?

- _Loki,_

No.-


End file.
